After trying several (at least 10) times to install the shiny new IE7 final release, I was stuck sitting there looking at the same old boring blue “e”. Apparently some installation error was keeping me from getting the glory of the yellow ring around the “e” (that sorta sounds nasty). After some searching and trying the install over (and over again)… I finally have found the issue.

My ie7.log file (in the %windir% folder, most commonly C:\Windows\) showed some error that goes a little like this: DoInstallation: CustomizeCall Failed: 0x3f5

I was lucky enough to find a Google Groups posting that provided some insight. This funky 0x3f5 error has to do with registry permissions.

The fix? Well, since I use XP Pro… I opened a command prompt and typed this in (actually, I really just pasted it from the groups post): secedit /configure /cfg %windir%\repair\secsetup.inf /db secsetup.sdb
/verbose /areas REGKEYS
… and then hit the enter key. About 10 minutes later it was done, and I tried the IE7 installation again.

If you’re a XP Home user… you can go here to read the fix you have to do.

I now am gazing at the majestic yellow ring, and browsing the web with tabs… about time they did this. For the record… I still prefer Firefox.